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Blogging about Books and Things

Month: March 2017

Hanya Yanagihara has written a wonderfully long novel, A Little Life, about the forty year friendship of four men. Jude,Willem, JB and Malcolm start out as college roommates in New England and end up in New York. After various struggles, they all achieve significant success in their chosen fields. More importantly they are all interesting and likable men. With the exception of JB as an occasional foil, they are fundamentally kind and loyal. Their careers and their sex lives figure in the story, but they aren’t the main thing. Their friendship is the heart of the book, even as all four men lead independent lives.

Jude commands most of the attention. Brilliant, kind, fragile and needy, he is a singular character. I kept wanting to fix his life. (I would literally wake up in the morning with some notion about how Jude could do something differently, and that isn’t my normal reaction to a book.). The slow unwinding of Jude’s past shapes drives the narrative. We gradually learn more about Jude than do his friends, who persist in their loyalty to him even when he makes that hard to do. Similarly, Ms. Yanagihara slowly peals away the past of the other men so that we come to understand them.

This is a long, rich book. I just had to keep reading. The deep, evolving friendships and a pervasive acknowledgement of kindness and ethical behavior consistently held my interest. The very idea of four men remaining friends for such a long period was intriguing.

Perhaps because the book was so long, I became very invested in the characters. I wanted more for them. Some problems can’t be overcome, but I found myself wishing that a character might be stronger or more resilient. If only they could have gotten past some obstacle…

For some reason, I assumed this novel was written by a man, and I only realized that it was written by a woman after I finished it. (You don’t get dust jackets when you read on Kindle.) Ms. Yanagihara’s style is clear, and she skillfully tells the story from a number of perspectives and points in time. I was driven to keep reading because I needed to know more, and it was hard to accept that ultimately the book came to an end.

Please go see this powerful docoumentary! I Am Not Your Negro was written by James Baldwin, who died in 1987 at the age of 63, and directed by Raoul Peck with narration by Samuel Jackson. If you are too young to remember the civil rights movement of the 60’s, you will learn a lot. Even if you are familiar with the era, the film will teach you new things and remind you that the struggle is far from over. There is nothing preachy about this film — the passion of the movement and its heroes make the movie fly by. The film is extremely well done — so well done that I was swept up by the drama of it all and didn’t take note of the undoubtedly brilliant editing.

James Baldwin was inspired to write this film by the 1960’s assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcom X and Martin Luther King. He knew all three men, all of whom died before the age of 40, and shows them as young men facing unimaginable challenges. The film shows moving footage of all three, plus film of many other players of the time. Baldwin’s recounting of Lorraine Hansberry’s meeting with Bobby Kennedy is only one of the remarkable stories in this amazing film, but I was also struck by excerpts from Malcolm X’s speeches, because I was less familiar with them. We lost so much when we lost these three men.

Baldwin himself appears frequently, and his every appearance drives the film and our understanding of the struggle. Baldwin’s interviews by Dick Cavett and his speech at Cambridge University’s debate forum are brilliant. He combines anger, fear and shock with articulate analysis about what is happening and why. He’s not yelling; he is explaining. His blunt and bleak assessments are utterly compelling, yet he claims a small measure of hope, for why else would he be doing what he is doing.

Footage of more recent police shootings add urgency and remind us that this struggle is far from over, and that no one with a conscience can claim otherwise. In these difficult times when so many would erase history, we need to know what happened and why, as well as to better understand the anger and fear our brutal history of prejudice has engendered.

People really need to read this book! William L. Shirer, the famous author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich – A History of Nazi Germany, kept a diary while he was stationed in Berlin from 1934 to 1941. Shirer began as a print journalist but was converted to a radio journalist in Berlin the 1930’s and though 1940. I recently read his diary from that period, Berlin Diary – The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941. Shirer’s writing is clear and absorbing. His diary is a primary source, and it makes for harrowing reading.

Shirer was a foreign correspondent for various American outlets when he found himself in Germany in the 1930’s and through the pivotal year 1940. His own experiences of struggling with censors and putting out his broadcasts in the midst of heavy bombing are justification enough for his book. His visits to the countries Germany has defeated are fascinating and ominous all at the same time. Many of his colleagues were kicked out by the Germans. Shirer tries to stay on the grounds that his witness is important, but he knows the Germans are using him or at least think they are. It is a fascinating game. Shirer’s narrative bounces from visits to battlefields, to encounters with Nazi leaders, to every day life in Berlin, to worries about his own safety and self-respect. He tries to figure out exactly what is happening and get the word out without getting kicked out of Germany.

The transcending importance of this book is that Shirer’s personal experiences occur within the malevolent atmosphere of Nazi Germany and the countries it defeated. I found it impossible to read about the unrelenting cruelty and domination of the Nazi’s and not think about what is happening in the United States today. Whereas here we have attempted censorship of the press and ham-handed efforts to exclude reporters, in Nazi Germany this is what actually happened as a matter of course. Germans had long been denied accurate internal reporting of hardships and loss, so they became inured to it and stopped believing anything they read. Now we find ourselves in an era of “fake news,” where our leaders feel no compunction to tell the truth or keep their promises. Bullying has become an accepted political tactic. Are Americans getting to cynical and complacent to resist? Similarities with Nazi Germany are growing, and we should fear what might come next in our own country.

Shirer’s diary underscores the point that the truth ceased to matter in Nazi Germany and that the Nazi leaders felt emboldened to create an endless, self-agrandizing narrative to dress up and justify their criminal actions. So, too, were they emboldened to villify Jews and other handy scapegoats because they felt they could. This is a terrifying blueprint.

Although Shirer’s book feels particularly prescient at this time and he openly states his opinions, he has not written a polemic. This is the diary of someone trying to be a journalist in the midst of Nazi Germany. Shirer’s own American perspective is very much in place and enhances the value of his diary, which he obviously kept hidden while in Germany.

Lastly I should note that whereas liberals like myself may read this book and draw ominous analogies with current American politics, even if your politics are far to the right of mine, this book has profound historical significance and is an excellent read. I recommend it.